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Shion Izumi
Shion Izumi (和泉 紫音, Izumi Shion) is a teenager who is incredibly skilled at the Gantz game and who won his freedom before the series' start, but later enters the game again. Appearance Izumi is tall and handsome, with long black hair and a muscular build. His height Is 187 cm. Personality As Izumi enters the Gantz game, he quickly develops a feel for the game and ends the games usually with a high score. Izumi is arrogant and aggressive at times and never shows his true self unless he is in the game; while not performing missions, he puts on a facade as a normal teenager, but in truth, he lives only for Gantz and cares for nothing else, such as making grades, sports, or things like that. As it is revealed during the dinosaur alien mission, Izumi only truly "feels so alive" when he is struggling for his life, despite fearing death, as he is truly enjoying his existence when fighting to survive, on a thin line between life and death. He usually only cares about winning the game and has almost little to no regard for any of the other team members nor any passing bystander, though, somewhat interestingly, he plays with Hoi Hoi, the panda, and even saves the animal's life once, and he even lets Hoi Hoi hug him often. Izumi is also somewhat fixated on Kurono and tries to surpass him constantly. In the beginning this surfaces as him being envious of Kurono being in the game, instead of him. Later, once in the game, he is consecutively frustrated and surprised by Kurono's feats, which often exceed his own, and seems to fuel his inferiority complex, and lead him to continue to envy Kurono, whose mere presence urges him to strive on. Even though he shows many traits of a psychopath, Izumi does seem to have some sort of a conscience; after slashing Tae Kojima during the kill Tae Kojima mission, he is shown hesitating after raising his sword for the finishing blow, instead letting her die in Kurono's arms. When Ryouko, his girlfriend, jumps in front of Hikawa to take a blow meant for him, Izumi shields her and takes the hit instead. He also shows some sort of remorse for his actions as he dies from the blow he received, and seems to admit and recognize his actions will take him to hell. Izumi also shows concern and care for Ryouko before his passing, possibly showing that he at least appreciated that Ryouko had been there for him and loved him, since he had never really cared about her in turn. Izumi dies peacefully, with his final words to Ryouko promising to take her to Disney land for her birthday tomorrow after he sleeps. Background Izumi was an A-student and an extremely talented athlete attending a boy's school. At some point, Izumi died, and was sent to the Gantz room. He eventually became the leader of the team, and after the "Hunt on Shinjuku Street" he accumulated 100 points and chose to have his memories erased and leave the game. Gantz/Minus Bored by the lack of challenge, of people able to compete with him, Izumi decided to steal the Mercedes from a Yakuza. Unfortunately, this also quickly became boring in his eyes and relaxed his attention for a few seconds. The shock was inevitable and Izumi struck a truck full force. Gantz then intervened. Much more posed than the other newcomers, Izumi quickly stamped with impatience when Akari and Oki informed him of what was to follow. He finally had the chance to fight opponents worthy of him! The results were quickly felt. At the end of the first mission, Izumi had already scored 10 points, something rare for a newcomer. And he did not intend to stop there. Ready to do anything to score points, Izumi decided to go immediately to face the boss during the second mission. But, disconcerted by the latter who considered him only as a smallfry, Izumi lost his foot and had to content himself with the 23 points obtained by killing aliens of second class. But the biggest shock came from his confrontation with the Specimen Alien. The alien having the opportunity to see the future, he showed Izumi his future as well as his inevitable death in front of Hikawa. Haunted by this scene, Izumi, who was always fighting alone, surrounded himself with other Gantzers becoming their leader, thinking he could thus prevent this prophecy. However, that was not enough; shaken with fear at the end of the Martian Jean mission when he faced Hikawa for the first time, he decided to leave Gantz reluctantly and was teleported home with a strange miniature sphere ... Plot Though he has no memories of the game, he was able to infer that he once participated in its events through Joichiro Nishi's website. It is through this website that he is able to find Kei Kurono, the one name listed throughout the entire site, and transfers to his school, and strives to spend time with him and question Kurono about the "black ball". There he encounters the alien Kurono failed to eliminate in one of his missions, and attempts to fight against it. Although he loses, he does force the creature to shed his disguise and also provides enough time for Kei to change into his suit and re-enter the room, though Izumi's intent was simply to fight it and defeat it. After this event, he desires to return to the game more than before. It is around this time that Izumi finds a miniature Gantz ball in his room requesting that he bring new players into the room. Once he finds it, Izumi calls Kurono with false information about an alien to drag him out into the open. Here, he taunts Kurono saying if he doesn't kill him, he'll massacre a lot of people. Kurono can not bring himself to shoot him. The next day Izumi disguises himself as a black man, enters Shinjuku, and uses a bag of guns to rampage through the streets, killing Hiroto Sakurai, Kenzo Sakata, and Daizaemon Kaze when they attempt to stop him, and either injuring or killing 387 others in broad daylight. No one is able to stop him. He then removes his disguise, kidnaps Kurono's girlfriend, and forces Kurono into a Mexican stand-off. They both shoot each other, and Izumi dies, and is sent to the room. He is a skilled swordsman and is the first to use the Gantz Sword, a katana with a retractable blade that was hidden in one of the apartment's rooms. He can easily be seen as Kei Kurono's "unfeeling" and arrogant rival whose only ambition is to live his life striving to be the best Gantz fighter. He is willing to take innocent lives to make it happen (e.g. killing Tae Kojima in one of the missions, although he also states that they would be killed unless they kill her). In his first mission back, the dinosaur arc, he ran off on his own right away to find the boss, seeking to get the most points. He kills two dinosaurs, with the first dinosaur helping him get his old self back. He is quite peeved when he has to retreat with Hoi Hoi from the boss alien, and Kurono ends up killing it instead, though Izumi managed to cut off its head prior. He is also quite surprised that so many people survived at the end of the mission, as most of them were not wearing suits. When Kurono, Tae Kojima, Ryouko, and Izumi go together on a double date, they are ambushed by vampires, with their intent being on capturing Izumi and killing the rest. Izumi goes into stealth mode, and eliminates them all, except for Saitou, who he battles one on one, even with his suit having maxed out. Though he is taken back by Saitou's skill, upon seeing Kurono, he is revitalized to show Kurono what he can do, and swiftly cuts off the vampires' arms, and then his head. During the Ring Alien mission, Izumi is shown using both the sword and gun in together to take down some of the aliens. During the Oni Alien mission, Izumi attempts to go at the Oni Alien single-handedly, but is left exhausted by the alien's thunder strikes, and is saved by Kurono and the rest of the team. Once Kurono weakens the alien enough, Izumi is grudgingly forced to team up with Kurono to take down the Oni Alien. When he earns 100 points for the first time since his return to the Gantz team, Izumi chooses Option #2 - a strong weapon, and tells Gantz to have it ready for him before the next mission. Upon being attacked along with Nishi in the subway and dealing with the vampires therein, he is then attacked by a legion of vampires in front of his apartment, upon a tip off from the reporter who alerted the vampires of Izumi's address in order to save his own skin. He disposes of all of them, only to be attacked by the four vampire leaders. Izumi manages to kill three of the leaders before his suit reaches its limit, and is in combat with the blond vampire before his girlfriend, Ryouko, rushes toward him, trying to get in the way of a blow from Hikawa. Izumi, surprising even himself, protects her from the final blow by shielding her with his own body. He receives no help from the others as Kenzo Sakata figures out he was the one that killed them all at the massacre, and thus no one goes to his aid. He then marvels at the scores of dead vampires he felled and states that he is definitely going to hell. In addition, he wonders at the beauty of his girlfriend and why he never noticed it before; he makes a promise to go to Disneyland with her the next day, and dies on the street from internal bleeding. Abilities & Skills Izumi proved throughout the series to be an a gifted and fearsome combatant, well versed in battles. Being tall, physically gifted, and coordinated made Izumi a particularly deadly warrior with the Gantz sword. Before his death, he was shown to be able to cleave an entire dinosaur in two, showing his strength and take tens of vampires simultaneously, showing his combat prowess. Even without the aid of the Gantz suit, he was able to slay Saitou, a particularly powerful vampire, showing his skill as a swordsman. When facing one of the vampire leaders, after having his suit destroyed, Izumi was still fast enough to slay him instantly. Izumi prefers using the Gantz Sword, feeling that it provides a more destructive and effective blow to the aliens using it constantly throughout the Gantz missions and against the vampires, but he is also shown using the Gantz guns rarely, such as in the mission against the ring aliens. When fighting multiple enemies at once Izumi has a custom of going into stealth mode, extending a Gantz sword to full length, then spinning a full 360 degrees killing anything at ground level. This strategy is used numerous times throughout the series and is shown to be incredibly effective (in one instance he is seen killing over 20 vampires with a single spin). This attack also seems to have a great deal of power behind it as Izumi is shown to easily slice an entire subway car in half with little effort. Izumi, though preferring to work on his alone, is able to work in a team effectively, as seen when he and Kurono took down the Oni Alien together. Another instance is when he and Nishi took down the two vampires in the subway simultaneously, with their hits occurring at the same time on their foes. Izumi also shows intelligence in fighting opponents; when going against the Shorty Alien in his classroom, he is perceptive enough to conceive that he will not be able to harm the shorty alien with his hands or take a direct blow with his body. Thus, he uses a school desk to block the alien's hits and knock him back, though after the alien reveals its true form, it swiftly subdues Izumi. Trivia * Izumi is shown to be knowledgeable of the impending arrival of Katastrophe, and was planning on obtaining more weapons in preparation for it. Though he prefers to fight alone, he is shown suggesting to the hunters who had 100+ points after the Oni Alien mission to upgrade to a more powerful weapon, perhaps indicating he would have recruited their help during it. * Izumi, ironically enough, despite not caring for his fellow Japanese often, is shown to be very nationalistic, as he wants to prove the Japanese are the best. * Nishi, interestingly enough, is very cordial towards Izumi, and actively seeks to talk to him when they are shown together. He also states Izumi was the leader of their old team. They also both favor going into invisible mode for some sort of attack together. * When Izumi is fighting all the vampires beside his home, Nishi at least seems to respect Izumi enough to alert Sakurai that Izumi is being attacked by vampires. * Somewhat interestingly, in promotional art for Gantz, Izumi is shown as being part of the Tokyo Gantz Team frequently, also after his death, even though he prefers to go solo almost all the time in missions. References Navigation Category:Male characters Category:Deceased characters Category:Tokyo Gantz team